The News

"We should watch the news," Jodi says. "I don't know what's going on anymore."

"So what? Who cares?" I say in my best Brooklyn accent, impersonating Fred Armisen from SNL, impersonating Joy Behar from The View.

But the news is in trouble. And we are out of the loop.

Between dog training class twice a week, working, making dinner, and walking and training the dogs, there is little time left to catch up on national, much less local news.

I worry that my news is coming from satirical bits played out on SNL. And they are being selective of what will fit into their Weekend Update with Seth Myers, so that is only a fraction of what is going on in the world being mocked on Saturdays.

I used to love watching Jay Leno's monologue when he was the host of The Tonight Show before Conan O'Brien took over. But after all of the hubbub and the unsuccessful ratings transition of the show to Conan, and the eventual law suit and $32.5 million settlement to Conan to leave his contract early and hand the show back over to Leno, I've become disenchanted with Jay and don't watch any of the late night shows anymore. But before that happened, I got a nightly dose of satirical news from Jay's monologue.

Speaking of being selective of what to include in the news, I once attended a conference at The New York Times offices in NYC. I was working as the Associate Editor of my school's newspaper, The Metropolitan, and scored an all-expenses-paid trip to the Big Apple to attend their one-day conference called "Inside the Times." My friend Patty, the editor of the school paper, finagled the trip for herself and another staff member -- and, as associate editor at the time, I lucked-out and got to go.

At the conference, they said four names would be drawn and those four people would join The New York Times section editors and editor-in-chief in their Monday night meeting to decide what would appear on the front page the next day. The process and its importance is unseen by the news consumer. We read what is easiest to see. What's above-the-fold. What jumps out at us.

But important news can be buried inside those pages, and news story placement is all determined in this one meeting.

At the end of the conference day, we shifted in the theater-like chairs of the auditorium. Felice Nudelman, the conference coordinator, drew names for New York Times door prizes: baseball hats and t-shirts. Patty won a baseball cap she would present to her husband who was watching the kids.

Then, the front page meeting names were drawn. The first name was.... Christina something!

My heart jumped at the assonance of my name.

The second name was drawn Christopher something!

Again, I was jarred.

The third name... a less-Scandinavian name, which the reader struggled to pronounce.

The fourth and last name was called... "And from Metropolitan State University, Kristin Johnson!"

I was shocked. I pushed myself up and out of the comfy seat. Patty and I planned to meet later back in the room. I wandered up to the front of the crowded auditorium and waited with the others selected.

Felice looked at my empty hands. The others all had shirts or hats. "Let' get you a t-shirt," she said. Yes! I had wanted that gray logo-ed shirt.

Felice herded us up to the meeting. The Times offices looked like any other corporate company I had worked at -- cubicles sprawled out to cover the floor. The difference was that signs hung from the ceiling marking sections of the paper which split the floors into various departments: Business, Sports, Entertainment.... This wasn't the busy newsroom I had seen on shows like Mary Tyler Moore and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. This was an office. A professional office.

Finger to her lips, Felice motioned for us to be very quiet. We filtered into the conference room where the meeting would be held. we were the first to arrive. Felice handed out index cards and asked us to write down what we thought would be on the front page the next day.

As we waited, I worried. What if Bill Keller, the editor-in-chief, pointed at me and said, "What do you think? What should we put on the front page?"

I scoured my brain, praying I would not get a deer-in-the-headlights look if I were put on the spot. What would I say? I remembered that the Red Lake Indian Reservation shooting had just occurred. Maybe being from Minnesota they would ask my opinion on that. I sweated.

Section editors began filling seats.

I once had a microphone held under my chin and a huge television camera on me. That was in Newport Beach, California, at the annual Newport Beach Film Festival. "What did you think of the movie?" they asked me.
Deer-in-the-headlights stare at the camera lens. Then, "It was great. I thought it was great" was all I managed. They moved on to the next movie-goer.

Could I come up with something better, more witty to say if put on the spot at The New York Times? I wanted to sound intelligent. After all, they "expect the world." It was even on the baby blue conference folder handed out to us earlier that day. the folder included all sorts of great information, like how to be an ethical journalist.

The rest of the section editor seats filled and in walked Bill Keller. Everyone quieted. I sat up straighter, determined not to let my school or my state down.

Then, one of the Chris's next to me whispered, "Felice said do not say a word during the meeting. We're to be absolutely silent."

I froze in my chair. Then I passed along the information to the next girl in our group seated next to me. Our whole entourage was tucked away in a corner of the conference room. How did they get that huge table in here? We were to be seen and not heard. The pressure was off, except to try and not make a sound. Why wouldn't Bill Keller want my opinion? Well, he didn't.

We observed the discussion. Placement of articles tells the reader what is important. If the war is buried on page five, will anyone read about it? Or a soldier who died by a roadside bomb?

In the center of the table lay a Star Trek-like speaker-phone. The voice coming from it was a conference call from Baghdad. The war correspondent. What was going on with the war?

Michael Jackson was in the news then -- should he be on the front page? Was the public more interested in pop singers than billions of dollars and thousands of lives spent on a war away from home? What was news? Who has the right to determine what we will see as news? The news was the product and similar to product placement on shelves in bookstores or grocery stores, what is easily accessible and at eye level is what will be seen by most of the public. The front page is what we are told to care the most about.

After the front page debate, Felice led us out of the room as quietly as we had been brought in. they had not nailed-down decisions when we left, so it would be for us to guess what would appear the next day. I managed to maintain silence and followed the flock onto the elevator and out the front door.

It has been nearly a year since Michael Jackson died.

The war rages on in Iraq.

An oil spill in the gulf has gone on for 37 days with no resolution to the slick liquid gushing out of an under-the-sea pipe. President Obama was quoted as saying: "Plug the damn hole!" The spill has already been labeled the worst environmental disaster in history.

And the Facebook privacy debate also made The New York Times front page today.

The news at home:
Rex has recovered from a sprain of unknown origin. He took Rimadyl, Cephalexin, and Tramadol for a week and a half. Initially, he lost 5 pounds because he wouldn't eat. He became growly because he was in so much pain. He couldn't put any pressure on his back left leg. But thanks to the doggie dope we referred to as canine crack, now he seems back to his old self.

And the weather in Minnesota in 72 and sunny.